


Summoner: Rise.

by f0rt1ss1m0



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, HS Ancestor Night, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-04-02 05:13:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4047397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/f0rt1ss1m0/pseuds/f0rt1ss1m0
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Summoner gets his wings, loses a friend and finds two new ones. Written by request for Ancestor Night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summoner: Rise.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know, this probably is really bad.

You are a little under five sweeps old when you get your wings.

You don’t even know what they are at first, because they’re small and nubby and almost look like horns sprouting from between your shoulder blades, except that they are soft. Like gossamer. At first you try to hide them from your lusus, but there’s nothing to that. He sniffs you out as soon as you even think of it.

_nO NO NO, iT GOOD THING!_ he won’t stop blubbering, flickering around you so quickly you can barely catch a glimpse of him anymore. _dO NOT TOUCH rUFIOH. gOOD THING, gOOD THINGS. dO NOT TOUCH._

So you don’t. Sometimes they hurt. One evening, the second you step out of your recuperacoon you feel the pain suddenly reach out, as if stretching its limbs, and you gasp. They are orange and glitter in the moonlight and about the size of serving platters, half a metre across and half wide. They are streaked with brown veins, your own blood and nerves, but can only flap. They’re too flimsy to fly with.

Useless, you grumble, and reach for the cabinet. You don’t have to leave your hive tonight, but eventually you know you’ll have to take a trip to the market for food or supplies. If anyone was to see you like this…

_nO!!!!!! gOOD!!!!!!_

You whirl around at the shriek. Tinkerbull rips the bandages from your hands before you can blink and whips your hair up, making it flop in front of your eyes. He’s all up in your face now, chittering and blubbering and it’s all you can do to console him, lying that you weren’t going to bind your wings, but he doesn’t believe you. _dO, dO NOT TOUCH,_ he scolds and throws the bandages onto the floor. _wINGS GOOD. wINGS USEFUL. dO, nOT, tOUCH._

So you don’t.

At first you hide them in a coat when you go out, but pretty soon they start growing big and it gets hard. Once, twice, thrice a day you try moving them — it’s hard not to, but you begin to wonder if you could actually use them to fly. Maybe…well, it takes a while, but one day you feel confident for once and flap them really fast. And you get there. Just a little bit. You’re an inch off the ground and really, really shaky, and it’s only for a few seconds, but for that unbelievable second you can’t feel the floor. It’s breathtaking.

And you try again, and again, and again.

By the time you can fly easily from your front portal to your food preparation block and back again, it’s your fifth Wiggling Day. Tinkerbull has made you a pastry that you don’t think you’ll eat entirely, because he put raw stalks of grain in it. You’re awake, you’re happy, you’re…confident.

And you smell smoke.

You have one close neighbor, a rustblood about your age. Or…you _had_ a neighbor. When you look outside, all you see is a steaming heap of rubble where her hive used to be, scattered with flame and — in one place — the dark scarlet blood of her lusus.  There are large trolls all around, some of them kicking the pile of hive-rubble, some of them hauling your neighbor away to a cart. All highbloods. One of them catches you looking out your window and yells something you can’t hear, but you know it’s not good.

“Tinkerbull!” you yell, scrambling for the food preparation block. A lump in your throat catches your voice. “T — Tinkerbull, we have to run! There’s — there’s highbloods — ”

_WHOOOM._

Your hive is suddenly nothing but flame and smoke, and you can only scream as the ceiling comes down. Laughter echoes in your ringing ears; something warm dribbles down your forehead. You can’t feel your legs.

“Find ‘im! Find the rebels!” a deep voice guffaws, slurred and wobbly. “Find ‘em all, slave ‘em, kill ‘em!”

You’re on your stomach, but can’t move your head — your horns are too big — and can’t see. You don’t know it’s coming when suddenly pain shoots up your shins and thighs, agony unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. “Here’s one!” drawls a very, very close voice, and you’re suddenly lifted into the air. Not by your wings, by your collar. You want to kick but it seems as if your legs are broken, so you don’t.

“Lookit those purty wings,” and you can see his eyes now. Bloodshot indigo. “Rare, ain’t ya. F***ing m*tant.”

He tries to throw you down, but scared stiff though you are, instinct is strong. Your wings come to life without your permission; you hover in the smoke-thick air. On the ground, covered by your floating shadow, is your blood and Tinkerbull’s — you can’t even see what’s left of him.

There’s nothing. You scream.

You’re flying faster than you’ve ever flown before, more of survival than anything, and you don’t even know where you are anymore. The woods behind your hive were once your friend but at this time of night, and with this much fear clouding your eyes, you can’t tell where you’re going. Unfamiliar voices echo through the trees; they’re running faster. And you’re still crying.

There — a cave. Your wings are numb; your legs screaming. It’s all you can do to drop into the shadows and drag yourself across the ground but you can’t see where you’re going, and before you can smell the sulfur or feel the warm breath, your left horn scrapes a wall.

Except it’s not a wall. It’s living, and breathing, and looking you right in the eye.

_WHO 4R3 —_

You never hear the rest of its thought. A chorus of drunken laughter rises up behind you and you try to turn around to see them, and only just catch a mouth full of fangs and bright azure eyes before the cave is filled with light and a monstrous shriek.

When you recover your senses, it’s slowly, as if in a dream. In the steaming air around you, there’s only a soft glow of light and a pulse, an ethereal whisper in your ear.

_Who 4r3…are you?_

You open your eyes. For a second you can swear you see a face — a soft face surrounded by waves of black hair, large white eyes. Then it’s gone and all that’s left is the dimness of the cavern and a unfathomably large white dragon with intense red eyes that you’re not even sure if you should be able to look at without being struck down blind. It’s looking at you curiously and you sense a dripping of disgust as it smells your brown blood, but for the most part all it has is wonder. It sees your wings. There is blue blood dribbling from its lips.

_WH4T DO YOU C4LL YOURS3LF, BRONZ3BLOOD?_

“My name is Rufioh,” you force out, convincing yourself enough to stand tall. “My hive was destroyed and my lusus just killed by the highbloods.”

It — she, perhaps; the voice is higher —  regards you with an expression that you can only describe as amusement. _TH3Y W3R3 D3F1N1T3LY S4T1SFY1NG. BUT WHY COM3 H3R3? WHY D1STURB TH3 SUFF3R1NG PYR4LSP1T3?_

“I did not know this was your home. I’ll leave if you wish,” you reply as you try not to scream. The dragon is regarding you in the same way you would regard a particularly fresh piece of fruit. She stares at you for a while and you try to touch her mind, but it isn’t pleasant. As if you’re stepping over hot coals.

Then she lifts her head and sits to her full height — not tall enough to touch the ceiling of the cavern, but still intimidatingly large — and gives a snort. _YOU’R3 NO THR34T. YOU’R3 CR1PPL3D. YOU M4Y ST4Y, BUT DO NOT TOUCH M3 OR YOU W1LL W1SH YOU H4D N3V3R H4TCH3D._

And very simply, the dragon called Pyralspite lies down again and curls into a small ball next to the mangled remains of the highbloods who very nearly killed you.

–

When you wake (eventually you’d exhausted yourself enough to fall asleep, even through the splitting pain in both of your legs and the absence of your recuperacoon) it’s not in the cave. You’re in the middle of nowhere, actually, being extremely literal with nowhere because it’s literally a greenish-white void. There is a young woman staring at you.

“Didn’t think that’d work,” she smirks. It’s the same girl that you saw before, except that she’s now wearing red glasses over her white eyes. Her voice is eerily similar to the dragon’s — a little ingratiating and kind of nasally. “You’re a m*tant, aren’t you?”

You flinch at the slur but manage to nod. “Y…yes ma’am.”

“That’s what I thought. I’ll tell Pyralspite to be nice.”

You nod again.

“Well? Wake up, won’t you?”

Your eyes fly open. You’re back in the cavern, lying painfully on your stomach with your face pressed into your arms. There is really no comfortable way to lie with your horns and wings; floating in therapeutic green goo is a much more efficient method of getting rest.

You glance over to the dragon, not fifteen feet away from you. Just as you look at her, Pyralspite’s eyes open and lock with yours in a glare.

_F1N3,_ is all she huffs before reaching over, snatching you up by your collar with her front claws and lifting you into the air.

“Wait — !” you shriek as the dragon tears away, with you along for the ride, out of the cavern. You can barely breathe from the speed and can’t get ahold of the dragon mentally, she’s so worked up.

_MY L4DY L4TUL4 1NSTRUCT3D OF M3 TO C4R3 FOR YOU, 4ND YOUR FR34K1NG L3GS 4R3 BROK3N,_ Pyralspite’s voice thunders in your ears. _SO TH4T 1S WH4T 1 4M GO1NG TO DO. 1 HOP3 YOU 4R3 OK4Y W1TH 3XPL41N1NG YOUR W1NG COND1T1ON TO M3D1C4L PROF3SS1ON4LS._

You don’t reply, partially because you can’t. But for some reason, the other part of you is just fine with this.

“Thanks, Pyralspite,” you tell her after the fact. It’s only twelve sweeps later that she says you’re welcome.


End file.
